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The hunger at the gates

Author: Renaye H
last update Last Updated: 2025-12-08 14:13:48

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**CHAPTER TWO

The tunnels groaned as Malik sprinted through them, shadows stretching long and violent behind him. Sarai clung to him, her breath ragged, the baby’s heartbeat drumming through her body with a rhythm that didn’t feel human.

Aunt Dee’s voice echoed faintly behind them, shouting incantations as she fought to hold the barrier—but the sound was swallowed by something far louder.

A shriek.

Not a scream.

Not a cry.

A starving wail that scraped the marrow.

Sarai felt Malik’s grip tighten around her instinctively. She knew without seeing his face that his jaw had locked, his fangs had dropped, and whatever softness he carried for her had turned into pure, lethal instinct.

“Malik… what do they look like?” Sarai forced out, her voice trembling.

He didn’t answer immediately.

The silence scared her more than anything else.

Finally, he spoke—low, clipped, brutal.

“You don’t look at them. You run.”

“Mal—”

“They hunt with hunger, not sight,” he snapped. “If they see you, it means the
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  • The Devil you called   The blood that remembers

    **CHAPTER TWELVEThe warning came from Sarai’s blood before it came from the world.She woke screaming, hands clutching her stomach, a sharp, unfamiliar pain slicing through her like ice. The realm answered immediately—walls pulsing, wards flaring, shadows snapping into place like soldiers called to attention.Malik was at her side before her scream finished echoing.“What’s wrong?” he demanded, already scanning the room, fire burning low beneath his skin.Sarai shook her head, breath coming fast. “It’s not pain like before,” she gasped. “It’s… memory.”Her vision fractured.Suddenly she wasn’t in the hidden realm.She was standing in a ruined house on Earth—her childhood home. The walls were scorched, furniture overturned, blood staining the floor where laughter used to live. She smelled smoke, heard echoes of voices long gone, and then—A woman stepped out of the shadows.Her mother.Not as Sarai remembered her in sickness or death, but strong, eyes sharp, spirit blazing like a torc

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  • The Devil you called   When the realm bleeds

    CHAPTER SEVENThe first breach didn’t announce itself with fire or screams.It announced itself with silence.Sarai felt it before anyone else did a wrongness slipping under her skin, thin as a blade, sharp as a lie. The baby went still inside her, not asleep but alert, and that alone made her heart begin to pound.Something had crossed a line.She straightened where she stood, fingers curling instinctively, and the faint glow that had lingered in her palms dimmed. The forbidden word still echoed faintly in her bones, but now it felt… disturbed. Like a bell struck underwater.Aunt Dee looked up sharply from the ward circle she was reinforcing. “You felt that too.”Sarai nodded. “They didn’t force their way in.”Malik was already moving, shadows snapping tight around his shoulders as his senses stretched outward. “No,” he said grimly. “They were invited.”The word landed heavy.“Invited by who?” Sarai asked, though dread already coiled in her stomach.Before either of them could answer

  • The Devil you called   The word that bites back

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    CHAPTER FIVEThe first ancestor arrived at dawn.Not through a door.Not through shadow.Through Sarai.She woke with a sharp gasp, her body arching as heat rushed up her spine, and for one terrifying moment she thought something had gone wrong with the baby. Her hands flew to her stomach instinctively, breath shallow, heart racing.But the pulse there was calm. Steady. Strong.It wasn’t fear she felt.It was recognition.The hidden realm glowed softly with early light, the sky above painted in colors that didn’t exist on Earth—muted golds and bruised violets folding into one another like a living thing. Sarai pushed herself upright on the stone bed, and that’s when she felt it.She wasn’t alone in her body.Not possessed.Not overtaken.Accompanied.A voice stirred inside her—not the baby’s, but older. Wiser. Worn smooth by centuries of survival.Easy, child. Breathe. We would never harm our own.Tears sprang to Sarai’s eyes before she could stop them. “Who… who are you?”The air in

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